


scars will lighten, scars will fade

by LookingForShadows



Series: And This Is Good Old Boston [2]
Category: The West Wing
Genre: Boston, Character Study, Children, F/M, Gen, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-10
Updated: 2015-09-10
Packaged: 2018-04-20 00:52:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4767398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LookingForShadows/pseuds/LookingForShadows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Josh and Donna take a trip to Boston with their daughter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	scars will lighten, scars will fade

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place several years after the series finale.

They go to Boston at the worst time of year, in late August, when the city is gearing up for its annual scramble of college students and twenty-somethings moving, when the air feels stale with heat and heavy with humidity, when the tourists clog the city and the residents make their way down the coast to the Cape.

Josh had forgotten about all that, but he doesn’t mind.

The light touch to his hand startles him out of his own thoughts. It’s probably a good thing. They spent five days in Connecticut – his mother’s cousin Doris passed away nearly a week ago and they flew up for the funeral. He hadn’t been to the cemetery in Fairfield since Dad died, and it brings back memories he has tried to suppress, memories of being eight years old and trying to make sense of the chaos that his world had become overnight.

“What are you thinking about?” Donna says, her hand resting on his. He doesn’t answer her, not really; years of manipulating Congress and watching CJ work her magic have taught him how to twist his answers, even if it’s done poorly.

“Hey, how long do you think it had been since I was last in Connecticut?”

He risks a glance at her and finds that Donna is giving him a look that tells him she understands exactly what he is doing and will take none of his bullshit. “You’re avoiding the question.”

“I know.”

“New Year’s 2001,” she says softly, and her hand suddenly feels heavier on top of his. “After Christmas. Right before your mom sold the house.”

The pressure that has never quite moved from its spot squarely over his rib cage since Rosslyn seems heavier. “Right.” He sighs and pushes through the feeling. “How did you even remember that?”

“I wasn’t going to forget anytime soon,” she says quietly, and then says loudly, “Hannah! _Hannah!_ ”

Both of them fix their gaze on their five-year-old daughter, who has been chasing after the multitude of squirrels for the better part of twenty minutes. They’re lying on a grassy slope on the Common in front of the State House – both of which, Josh notes in the back of his mind, look a thousand times better than when he was a student across the river. Donna is standing, now, walking to where Hannah has decided to make friends with a stranger’s dog. “I’m so sorry, she’s been in a puppy phase for a while,” Donna is saying to the kid trying to wrangle a black lab. They walk back towards him, backlit by the brilliant sun, and he is caught by the sun in Donna’s hair and the wide eyes his daughter is making as she bounds towards him.

“Daddy, can we get a puppy?” she says, sitting down squarely on his legs.

He closes his eyes. God, he’s so grateful for her – having a kid makes it impossible to live in the past, and it’s easier to remember how good the present is when you’re able to live in it. However, it’s quite possible that a small part of his soul dies every time he says no to her. “What did Mommy say?”

He opens one eye to see her pout magnificently. “No.”

“If Mommy said no, that means I’m saying no too,” he says, and although realistically they could probably handle a dog now that they’re both out of the White House – and isn’t that a strange thing to think, and leaves a funny taste in his mouth though it was never spoken – he’s not about to argue with his wife.

Hannah sighs dramatically and flops back over his legs, her head resting on the grass. “But Miranda and Peter got a dog.”

Josh doesn’t mention that Miranda and Peter Santos were quite a bit older than Hannah before they got a dog – the President and First Lady didn’t give in to their requests for a more exciting pet than a fish tank until their second term – and that there was an entire staff of people to watch over the First Family’s pet. Instead, he says, “Maybe we could get a cat. Grandma and Grandpa Moss used to have two cats.”

“They still have two cats,” Donna says, and he grins at her. It’s worth it to make fun of anything Wisconsin-related solely for her exasperation, even if he doesn’t mind his in-laws so much.

“I don’t want a cat,” Hannah says, moving off of Josh’s legs and sitting between her parents. “Want a dog.”

“You liked the cat in the bookstore yesterday,” Donna reminds their daughter, and, really – old bookstores and a veritable fountain of trivia. Could his wife possibly be more like President Bartlet?

Hannah wriggles a little, grins. “Oh, yeah. She was funny.” She peers up at Donna. “Can we get a cat _and_ a dog?”

Donna sighs. “Why don’t you go play for a few more minutes before we walk over to the wading pool?”

Immediately, Hannah gets up and bounds several feet away, looking for all the world as though she’s been released from a trap of parental intrigue to keep away from everything fun in life. Josh watches her for a few more minutes, mulling over a conversation he had with his mom in Connecticut.

 _She’s so much like your sister,_ Mom had said at the reception after the funeral, sitting on Doris’s daughter’s couch and watching Hannah as she concentrated fiercely on her coloring book. He nearly collapsed from the shock. They don’t mention Joanie.

 _Really?_ he had asked. _How?_

Mom hadn’t looked at him, just tilted her head and kept watching Hannah. _That single-minded determination,_ she had said after a while. _Like yours, too. But she…I can’t even explain it. It just is._ She paused. _She’s going to go far, our Hannah._

Now, as Josh leans against his wife and watches his daughter sneak up on one of Boston’s ubiquitous squirrels, he wonders just how much he has forgotten – about his sister; about this city he rarely took advantage of as a college student; of his history, and how it’s all lead here.

“What are you thinking about?” Donna asks him, and they’ve come full circle, again, except this time he realizes: trying to forget his past might just be what has brought him to this present.

He turns and kisses the top of her head, relaxing into her. “The future,” he says.

**Author's Note:**

> Like the Parks and Rec story I also wrote about Boston, Haunt of Happy Hours, this is an homage to my adopted home. The details – from Dusty the Cat at Commonwealth Books to the spray pool at Frog Pond to the sheer number of too-friendly squirrels who populate both Boston Common and the Public Garden – are drawn from four years of wonderful memories.
> 
> Title is taken from a quote given to me by a friend, from C.F. Joyce’s book Persephone in Hell: “And scars will lighten, they'll pale unless you keep rubbing at them...wait long enough, they'll fade.”


End file.
